The climate change doc “Chasing Ice” heads home from the Sundance Film Festival to close the 8th Boulder International Film Festival (Feb. 16-19). And it’s a fine fit indeed.

Director Jeff Orlowski’s debut feature has deep roots in Boulder’s burgeoning filmmaking community. The film’s protagonist is James Balog. The intrepid nature photographer founded the Extreme Ice Survey — an organization that has been tracking the retreat of a number of glaciers in the northern hemisphere for the past seven years. Front Range stalwarts Paula DuPré Pesmen (producer on “The Cove”) and Jerry Aronson (director of “The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg”) produced the doc.

If things work out at Sundance for Jeff Orlowski’s “Chasing Ice” as they did for fellow Boulder filmmaker Louis Psihoyos “The Cove,” the first time director may be looking at an Oscar nomination this time next year

Monday night’s packed world premiere received two standing ovations. One right as the house lights went up in the Library Theater and Orlowski was introduced. The other came when the long-haired director brought his climate-change doc’s protagonist, James Balog, to the stage.

“Chasing Ice” is exactly what the nature photographer has done with his organization Extreme Ice Survey. For years Balog and his team of hardy souls have traced and documented the startling retreat of glaciers in Iceland, Greenland, and Alaska to name some of the locations he’s placed cameras.

The movie is often as stunning as it is chilling in offering visual evidence of global warming.

The Boulder-produced documentary “Chasing Ice” is among the films that will screen at the Sundance Film Festival in January, the vital indie fest announced this afternoon.

Jeff Orlowski’s “Chasing Ice” will compete in the U.S. doc category. The feature-length film follows environmental photojournalist James Balog during the creation of his Extreme Ice Survey, which documents in time-lapse the retreat of the glaciers in Greenland, Nepal and the Rocky Mountains, to name a few of the places where the Survey’s 38 cameras are located.

“It’s official,” Boulder-based filmmaker Jerry Aronson emailed. The former C.U. professor and director of “The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg” shares producing credit with Paula DuPré Pesmen on the film.

“The challenge of making a film about global warming is to not preach to the chorus,” said the film’s editor, Davis Coombe of Denver. “So we tried to make this film about art and the way art and science can work together and hopefully open some minds. It’s something anybody can enjoy and because of the almost adventure side of the story it’s a fun piece to watch.”

As news of the film’s inclusion broke, Orlowski was ensconced with composer J. Ralph (“Man on Wire” “The Cove”) in a New York studio.

Pesmen is no stranger to Sundance. A Boulder resident, she was a producer on “The Cove.” Louie Psihoyos’ documentary about the annual slaughter of dolphin in Japan premiered at the fest in 2009 and went on to win the 2010 Oscar for best documentary.

Lisa Kennedy has been The Denver Post film critic for quite a spell. The job returned her to the town she grew up in after 20 years of living elsewhere: mostly in New York City. During the time she's been back, she was voted into the National Society of Film Critics, a first for a Colorado reviewer. When she began Diary of a Mad Moviegoer, she wasn't just cribbing from Tyler Perry. In fact, she seldom goes all Madea on movies, thinking the gig is more like a conversation than a competition about who's right about which flick.